Wallace Reader'S Digest Funds Annual Report 2001

E D U C AT I O N :Leadership for LearningFor more than a decade, the WallaceFunds have pressed the cause of betterschools on a number of fronts: reforming school counseling so that it focusesmore on academics; converting largenumbers of school libraries into stateof-the-art educational centers; andabove all, improving teacher quality.Building on that record, we haveshifted our focus to a long-neglectedyet crucial corner of reform: strengthening education leadership, particularly the principalship and superintendency. Our LEADERS Count initiative,now in its second year, is bringingtogether many of the nation’s best educational minds and most innovativestates and districts to find better waysto: increase the pool of quality candidates for leadership; strengthen theabilities of superintendents and principals to improve student learning; andcreate more supportive conditions forthese leaders to succeed.States are central players in settingpolicies and creating conditionsnecessary for successful leadership, yetvery few have comprehensive plans forimproving district and school-levelleadership. Similarly, school districtsrepresent the front lines of teachingand learning, yet many are finding itincreasingly difficult to hire and retainhighly-qualified, well prepared superintendents and principals capable ofboosting student achievement.In 2001, we launched two effortsthat together will make up the centerpiece of LEADERS Count: the StateAction for Educational LeadershipProject (SAELP), and Leadershipfor Excellence and Achievementin Districts (LEAD). Following anexceptionally rigorous selectionprocess, 15 states have been namedto be part of SAELP, and 12 districtswithin those states were chosen toreceive LEAD grants. In 2000, NewYork State’s Education Departmentreceived major support to developand model new practices to improvethe recruitment, training and retention of school leaders.We have shifted our focus to along-neglected yet crucial corner ofreform: strengthening educationleadership, particularly the principalshipand superintendency.To buttress this work, we providedmajor funding to design and implement a new leadership program forsuperintendents at the Center forPublic Leadership, John F. KennedySchool of Government, HarvardUniversity. All LEAD superintendentswill participate and, in the long-run,we hope that this will serve as a modelfor future superintendent leadershipprograms.President’s Essay9

10PHOTO: DES MOINES ART CENTEROur efforts to develop new knowledge and build public awareness ofthe importance of leadership continued on several other fronts this pastyear. Last August, the Funds hostedour second annual LEADERS Countconference in Manitou Springs, CO,bringing together nearly 100 nationalauthorities and practitioners in schoolleadership. A Funds-sponsorednational survey by Public Agendaoffered a first-ever comprehensiveportrait of the professional attitudesof superintendents and principals,and received wide press attention.Extensive field-based work to developnew models for preparing and supporting superintendents and principals continues at the Institutefor Learning at the University ofPittsburgh; the Southern RegionalEducation Board in Atlanta; andThe Big Picture Company’s AspiringPrincipals Program in Providence, RI.We also created Ventures inLeadership, an online grant programthat provides a relatively quick wayto help schools, districts, colleges andother nonprofit organizations testinnovative ideas to improve educational leadership. Through its firstyear, we provided more than 60 suchgrants to organizations in 28 statesand the District of Columbia. Wewere frankly astonished at the outpouring of grassroots interest andcreativity.Through these combined efforts,we are beginning to learn just whatquality school leadership is, and howstates and districts across Americacan put into practice the lessons we’relearning in attracting, keeping andsupporting leaders capable of improving student performance.ARTS:The Power of ParticipationThe Wallace Funds have embarkedon an expanded, multifaceted effort torevolutionize participation-buildingpractices among interested arts organizations and their funding partners.Building on an extensive record ofaccomplishment and knowledge accumulation over the past decade, oursingle focus is to have the arts becomeessential resources for individual learning, personal enrichment and community health nationwide. To promotethat goal, our work employs fourbroad strategies: Propel the development of culturalorganizations that are effectivelyincreasing participation in theircommunities through our program,Leadership and Excellence in ArtsParticipation (LEAP). Foster partnerships with states(and other public and privatefunders) to increase participationin, and support for, the arts. Create a national movement ofeffective arts participation organizedaround the theme of Arts4AllPeople. Develop new research-based knowledge and tools that foster theadoption of new standards for artsparticipation among organizations,funders and community leaders.

Our single focus is to have the artsbecome essential resources for individual learning, personal enrichmentand community health nationwide.Des Moines’ leading artsinstitution is broadening anddiversifying participation througha greater variety of offeringsand community partnerships.(story on page 23)Through LEAP, the Funds have provided multi-year support to arts andcultural groups that best exemplify howto build participation in their communities and that, as a result, provideknowledge and leadership for others.Through 2001, we had invested nearly 25 million in LEAP grants to 26 organizations throughout the country. In2002, we are adding 13 more exemplaryorganizations to the list. Because thiseffort to build participation cuts acrossdisciplines, LEAP has been singled outby leading news organizations as representing an industry “trend.”In 2001, we began a new program,State Arts Partnerships for CulturalParticipation (START), focusing onhelping exemplary state arts agenciesadopt new, more effective guidelines,programs and funding practices aimedat encouraging broader public participation in the arts. Nationwide statearts agencies grant more than 450million annually to about 25,000 artsorganizations, making them by far thelargest source of government fundingin the arts. Their mission is complex,and they would be helped by havingmore and better ways to use data andto share successful statewide participation-building strategies. Thirteen agencies were awarded multi-year grantstotaling nearly 10 million to supportthose efforts.In 2001, we also launchedArts4AllPeople, a multifaceted strategy to create and share among artsorganizations the growing body ofknowledge about successful ways tobuild participation. We created a newwebsite, www.arts4allpeople.org,designed as a “virtual community” forpractitioners and funders, to disseminate research and success stories andprovide a place to share ideas andexperiences. As part of this effort tobuild a learning network about participation, the Funds also sponsored twonational meetings of leading arts andcultural organizations in the fall of2001 in Houston and Chicago.Finally, with our support, RandCorporation published a landmarkbook, A New Framework for BuildingParticipation in the Arts. The studyshatters the conventional wisdom thatincome, education, and other demographic factors beyond the controlof cultural institutions are the mostimportant determinants of people’sdecisions to participate in the arts. Infact, the decision to participate or notis based on a range of factors andchoices that can be strongly influencedby the practices of arts groups. For thefirst time, the report equips arts organizations of all kinds with a systematicframework for understanding andbuilding arts participation, placingthem in a far better position to spendresources more effectively to strengthen their organizations and better servethe public. The Rand report hasbecome a “best-seller” almost overnightin the arts field. Looking ahead to2002, several other publications areplanned that will shed even more lighton the challenges and the best practices in participation building.President’s Essay11

COMMUNITIES:Enhanced Learning Opportunitiesfor Families and ChildrenLifelong learning and strong literacyskills are essential for success and selfsufficiency in the 21st century. Butwe also know that schools alone can’tcarry the burden of meeting theseincreasing learning demands withoutthe help of a wide range of communityinstitutions.In cities around the country,leaders are looking for ways to upgradeand coordinate fragmented servicesthat will result in better learning outcomes for children, youth and families.In the last decade, the Funds haveinvested in many successful programsat local institutions to increase learning.For example, our work in librarybased adult literacy programs in eightstates produced crucial, practicallessons in meeting the difficult challenge of learner persistence. Since1996, dozens of leading public librarieshave improved their youth development and literacy services with Funds’support. And our support of afterschool programs in low-income sitesacross the country led to publicationsthat offer fresh insights and lessons12on how to start and operate theseprograms. Our handbook, “GettingStarted with Extended ServiceSchools,” has been especially usefulfor participants in the greatly-expanded federal “21st Century CommunityLearning Centers” program.Building on that legacy, ourCommunities team began a process in2001 to develop effective program andknowledge-building strategies that willstrengthen and coordinate the work ofa variety of institutions to maximizelearning opportunities for children,youth and families and thereby enrichcommunity life.An early milestone in that processwas reached in December with thelaunch of “Parents & Communitiesfor Kids” (PACK). Grants went tocommunity organizations in NewHaven, Detroit, St. Paul and Boston,with the goal of improving learningoutcomes for children between theages of six and 10 through activitiesthat take place outside of the traditional school day. In 2002, theFunds will convene the teams fromeach PACK site to begin the exchangeof knowledge, experience andinformation.Using a combination of program,research and communicationsactivities, the Funds are workingwith these community groups to: Improve the supply of qualityout-of-school learning opportunitiesfor children and families. Increase the demand for andparticipation in such opportunities. Use this participation to helpchildren learn and prepare forsuccessful adulthood.Our planning process will producefurther work to strengthen the capacityof community organizations to providelearning opportunities for childrenand families, and to capture the lessonsso that many other organizationscan benefit. To realize that vision ona broad scale, program investmentswill build on the lessons of past work.Knowledge-building investments willcreate a strong baseline of informationand create new lessons for the futurethat apply beyond the scope of ourdirect investments. Together, families,institutions and communities will bestrengthened.

PHOTO: KEN LEVINSONLifelonglearningand strongliteracy skillsare essentialfor successand selfsufficiencyin the 21stcentury.A Queens, NY, library adult learning centeris opening the doors to lifelong literacy.(story on page 29)Changing LivesAll of these efforts in our three focusareas aim at the same objective: largescale social benefits that extend farbeyond the reach of our investments.Still, we never forget that these benefits have their clearest expressionsin the impact on people —residentsof a retirement home in Des Moines,IA, who are helped by a museumto rediscover the deeper meanings intheir lives, and tell their stories toothers, through art. A 29-year-oldJamaican mother of three who isdiscovering for the first time the lifealtering possibilities of reading at aQueens, NY, library literacy center.School leaders in Austin, TX, who arefinding ways to help students becomebetter learners by becoming betterprofessional learners themselves.In the pages ahead, we offerthree such stories that illustrate howsome of our partner organizationsin education, arts and communitiesare changing lives.M. Christine DeVita, PresidentPresident’s Essay13

EducationCHANGING LIVES ArtsCommunities

PHOTO: DAVID OMERPrincipal Barbara “Bobbie” Gideonwith students at Crockett Highin Austin, TX.

EducationMaking Leaders andLearning Countuntil recently, Glenn Nolly,one of five “area superintendents” inthe Austin, Texas Independent SchoolDistrict, was the person principalscalled if computers broke down, ifsupplies didn’t arrive, or if buses wereoff schedule. To earn his promotionto district-level leadership, Nolly hadpreviously spent 15 years as a masterteacher and charismatic high schoolprincipal. Suddenly, as one of this central Texas district’s putative “educationleaders,” Nolly found himself miredin everything but the core businessof schooling: teaching and learning.“It was consuming me,” Nollysays. “That’s not what I went to schoolto do.”Nolly’s story goes deeper thanone man’s frustration. In virtually everystate, school standards and expectations have never been higher. PresidentBush raised the stakes even furtherwith the passage this year of the “NoChild Left Behind” Act. For the firsttime in this country’s history, the actputs federal muscle behind the goalof having 100 percent of childrenachieving at high standards. Againstthat background, education leadershipcounts as never before. If high standards are to be universally achieved,superintendents and principals need tohave the time, and the preparation, tomake learning the core value throughout their systems, and to ensure thatexpectations and goals are understoodand realized in every single schooland classroom.Yet until recently, district leaderslike Nolly in Austin, as in many otherdistricts, were more preoccupied withthe routines of schooling than itscore purpose of improving learning.Principals like Barbara Gideon ofCrockett High, a 2,400-student schoolserving mainly blue-collar families,functioned primarily as manager andpeacekeeper, not instructional leader.This lack of focus on learning byAustin’s education leaders reacheddown to classroom life. Teachers hadfew organized opportunities to bereflective, continuous learners — tothink deeply about classroom methodsand to share successes and disappointments with peers.Changing Lives /Education17

Mary Price leadsa “hands-on”lesson atCrockett High.18PHOTO: DAVID OMERFor Austin’s 78,000 students, thedisconnection between leadershipand learning meant that learning criteria and expectations were not routinelyspelled out in clear, step-by-steplanguage so that any student couldunderstand and apply them. Instead,a “good” essay, or poem, was simplywhatever a teacher decided was worthan “A” or “B.” In that setting, theeducational experience was likely tobe a passive, Pavlovian ritual, not anactive, effort-based engagement inwhich students must take ownershipand responsibility to succeed.Signs are now emerging, however,that Austin is beginning to break thecycle of self-reinforcing mediocrity.An energetic district superintendent,Pascal D. “Pat” Forgione, has beencreating a climate that puts learningfirst systemwide, including reorganizing central office roles so that districtleaders like Nolly are largely freeof the administrative distractions thatprevented them from being leadersof learning. Instead of managing busschedules, Nolly now meets regularlywith planning teams of district principals to focus on cutting-edge researchon topics like improving mathinstruction.The shift to learning as a corevalue in Austin is getting crucial support from the Institute for Learningat the University of Pittsburgh, directed by the nationally-renowned educational thinker, Lauren B. Resnick.With the help of a 3.9 million grantfrom the Wallace Funds, teams fromthe Institute are working directly withschool leaders in Austin and 11 othermostly urban districts to provide newstrategies and clear, simple languageto help put the fruits of decades ofproven but often neglected educationalresearch into practice.Taken together, the goal is to uniteentire school systems into what Resnickcalls “nested learning communities”—where there are no “throwaway” kidsor teachers, where standards are rigorous, clear, and universally expected,where effort, not inherent aptitude,is considered the main wellspring ofsuccessful learning, where everyoneis accountable for being both a learnerand a model learner for others, whereno one is isolated, and where everyonefrom the superintendent on downis responsible for contributing continuously to everyone else’s learning.“When I came here in August1999,” says Forgione, “we had ashared vision, but what we didn’t havewas a vocabulary, and shared tools,to make it happen.” Now, with theInstitute’s principles and its techniquesto put them into practice, the districthas both.

Pascal D. ForgioneWe had a shared vision, but whatwe didn’t have was a vocabulary,and shared tools, to make it happen.Now, with the Institute’s principlesand its techniques to put them intopractice, the district has both.“We’re optimistic that this willwork, and here’s why,” says DarleneWestbrook, Austin’s deputy superintendent for curriculum and instruction.“Other models for reform start withthe teachers. This one starts with theadministrators: the superintendent, thearea superintendents, and the principals. The model puts expectations onus as learners, to create and reinforcethose expectations systemwide.”One of the techniques developedby the Institute for Learning to helpschool leaders is called the “LearningWalk.” Several times a month, principals like Gideon guide small groupson carefully prepared classroom visits.Participants, who routinely includeother teachers, or principals from otherschools, parents, ministers, schoolboard members, or even the superintendent, prepare for the walks byreading an article on a particular topic,such as writing persuasive essays.The spirit of these learning walks isscrupulously constructive. “It’s not a‘gotcha’ thing” to embarrass teachersin their own classrooms, but a tool ofprofessional development, Gideonemphasizes. Still, the questions and theobservations are pointed, and directedalways at students, not the teacher.Are students eager and comfortablein explaining their work? Do theyunderstand what good work looks like?Do they know the steps to followto reach learning objectives? Are thelearning tasks rigorous? In short, islearning taking place, connectedto clear expectations? At the end of thewalk, participants typically ask theteacher questions aimed at promptingideas about how a particular lessoncould be improved, or any patternswithin the entire school.Student (left), with Principal BarbaraGideon and Scott Malcolm, assistantprincipal at Crockett High.PHOTO: DAVID OMERPHOTOS: DAVID OMERDarlene WestbrookChanging Lives /Education19

PHOTO: DAVID OMERThis “CriteriaChart,” displayedin a Crockett HighEnglish classroom,guides studentsstep-by-step onwhat it takes tosucceed at specificacademic tasks.20

Now you have leadership that remembersthe classrooms, and is in the classrooms.Literally and figuratively, we are openingthe classroom doors.The learning walks “put me on mymettle as a teacher,” says Mary E.Price, a 24-year veteran English teacherwho, like others on the staff, admitsinitial skepticism about the learningwalks but is now a strong convert whocredits her principal for the school’sturnaround. “Bobbie really seems toget it. Before her, I never had a principal who cared much about curriculum.Now you have leadership that remembers the classrooms, and is in theclassrooms.”“Literally and figuratively,” saysGideon, “we are opening the classroomdoors.”Such efforts have already promptedvisible changes in Austin’s classrooms.Student work is displayed everywherein the school. “Criteria Charts” layingout for students

tion that had built up in the Reader's Digest stock and to begin diversifying the Funds' asset base. The natural conclusion of this process occurred in April, 2002when we announced an agreement to sell, at a premium, our voting control ofReader's Digest in a reorganization ofthe Company's capital structure. This plan provides